This website is dedicated to some of the companies who are ripping the consumer off, something Imate or its repairers seem to do so well in Australia. I started this website after the frustrating of having a cracked touch screen on my Imate 8502.

After battling to find out who to send the phone to (You have to love it when a number of Telstra stores can’t tell you who to send a phone to after you bought it from them?)  I eventually managed to locate the information thanks to one of the forums and no thanks to Telstra. The company responsible for Imate repairs in case you are wondering is a company called MPS - Queensland based - http://www.mpsqld.com/ . (Incidentally, I sent Telstra a complaint about this but they couldn’t see fit to respond - great service isn’t it?)

Thank god I decided to email them before sending my phone through or I would have been hit with a $60 non-refundable quote fee and I suggest you do the same if you know what the damage is.

Anyway, initially I ask to buy just a touch screen, I was promptly informed that:

1. a)they don’t sell the touch screen alone, its joined to the LCD so its one part - really stupid given its a common failure point for phones.
   

2. b)they don’t sell parts, you have to send your phone to them - how to make a repair really expensive.
   

When I asked for a quote on a replacement screen, I was told the repair would cost $375 including return shipping (from Queensland), more than half of what the phone would cost new and probably at least three quarters of the cost price, in fact I’m actually pretty sure I could get a new one of these somewhere on ebay for $500 or less. I.e. R I P O F F! The irony is the touch screen is cracked and the LCD is fine effectively they are charging me $375 to replace a 1mm thick piece of glass on the phone. Given that a large screen on a phone has a high likelihood of being damaged (mine was when I walked past a table with my phone in my pocket so it wasn’t even a hard knock), its either bad design, bad customer service or a ripoff.

At this stage, I honestly don’t know who is at fault. It could be MPS ripping off the consumer or simply Imate ripping off those consumers unfortunate enough to break their products, but as a consumer, I honestly don’t care, the only thing I do care about is making sure as many people as possible don’t buy this crap by knowing what they are in for.

If you would like to tell your sad tale about Imate’s products, please email me the a description of the problem along with a photo of your sorry phone. You can email me at admin@imatesucks.com

So, if you’re interested in buying an imate phone, DON’T, god forbid you actually break the screen you’ll need to replace the entire phone!

Secondly, if you’re interested in sending your phone for repair to MPS, you may want to get a quotation for it first or you may find yourself stuck with a $350 bill and a $60 rejection fee if you don’t take them up on their quote.